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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28855302">T. Shirogane Travels in Space!</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/tomatocages/pseuds/bog%20gremlin'>bog gremlin (tomatocages)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Voltron: Legendary Defender</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Farm/Ranch, Blade of Marmora Keith (Voltron), Cuddling &amp; Snuggling, Getting Together, Getting to Know Each Other, Half-Galra Keith (Voltron), Keith (Voltron) was Raised by the Blade of Marmora, M/M, Post-Canon, Rick Steves in Space basically, Sheithmark 2021, Tardigrades, Tour Guide Shiro (Voltron), post-war politics</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 04:53:25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>9,309</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28855302</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/tomatocages/pseuds/bog%20gremlin</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Ever since the war ended and he started exploring the universe as the host of his own travel show, Shiro’s felt slightly bored. When a representative of the Blade of Marmora invites him to visit a ranch on New Dainbazaal, Shiro assumes it's an attempt to rehabilitate postwar perceptions of the Galra. He doesn’t expect to rediscover his love of flying — or to discover love.  </p><p>Written for SheithMark 2021.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Keith/Shiro (Voltron)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>108</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Sheithmark 2021</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>T. Shirogane Travels in Space!</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Happy SheithMark! My prompt was the movie <em>Under the Autumn Moon</em>: while scouting a dude ranch for the outdoor adventure company that employs her, a woman rediscovers her passion for the great outdoors and becomes smitten with the ranch's owner. </p><p>Unstinting thanks and praise to: </p><p>my beta, for helping me figure out how to get from point A to B in a way that made emotional sense. All good is directly related to your influence, all missteps are my own</p><p>and </p><p>the mods, for organizing this event </p><p>Apologies to Rick Steves; may he never find this.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p>
  <span>Shiro doesn’t turn in his resignation the week after peace is declared, but it’s a near thing: he’s only stopped by Sam physically blocking the exit to Shiro’s office. Shiro has too much respect for the man to push him out of the way. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Freedom has its costs,” Sam says, in the tone of voice that indicates he’s been reading military biographies again. Shiro will have to tell Colleen. She’ll put a stop to that nonsense. Sam hasn’t been allowed to read military biographies since he got the whole family swept up in a revolution, then claimed he didn’t have time to walk the dog. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I have literally died,” Shiro points out. He waves his disembodied prosthetic for emphasis. “I gave my right arm for the cause! Don’t you think that’s enough?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well, now you can give your time and attention to the infrastructure we need to cobble together,” Sam says. “It’s only decent.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Decency: it’s Shiro’s kryptonite. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Fine,” he mutters, and sits himself back down.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The paperwork isn’t as bad as he feared; it’s worse. After two years of treaties and meetings and “vacations” that are really just business trips to off-planet project sites — Shiro loves his mother, but after the last time she tried to set him up with a PR representative on an official tour, he can’t bring her as his plus-one any longer — he’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>really</span>
  </em>
  <span> had enough. That’s when Pidge breaks into his office and sits on top of his desk, blocking his computer screen with her little body.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hi, Katie,” he says. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hi, Shiro,” she answers. “I think you should retire.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I would love nothing but,” he says. “But every time I try to hand in my resignation, your father gets in the way. Literally.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Don’t call him my </span>
  <em>
    <span>father</span>
  </em>
  <span> in that tone, it makes me feel like my mom’s right around the corner and ready to pick a fight,” Pidge shudders. “What you need is to go to them after you’ve accepted another job. It’s a classic move. That’s how I did it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It occurs to Shiro that he is Pidge’s direct report. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Pidge,” he says, “is this your two weeks notice?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m moving to New Olkarian on Monday,” she says. It’s Thursday. “But I backdated my letter so it </span>
  <em>
    <span>looks</span>
  </em>
  <span> like I gave you two weeks notice.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“When I said ‘go, be great,’” Shiro starts, rubbing at the spot between his eyes before forcing himself to stop, because the last thing he needs to to go to a debrief with a red thumbprint in the center of his face, “I did not intend for you to abandon me — I mean, abandon your post — ”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Relax, old-timer,” Pidge says, leaning forward to kiss Shiro on his whitened brow. “I promise I’ll write.”</span>
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>After a self-indulgent weekend of watching cooking shows over video call with his mother (Shiro follows along with the show; his mother is not allowed near a stove, lest she burn down her retirement village), Shiro writes an outline for his dream job (exploring the universe) and sketches concept maps until he comes up with a way to make it happen.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Garrison and the Coalition aren’t really interested in exploration nowadays. That’s where public broadcasting comes in. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Shiro secures most of the funding to make a television show on his own, but begs Lance to make the actual phone calls. Lance, who thrives on accomplishing all tasks by gossiping, agrees on the condition that Shiro officiate his upcoming nuptials. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m not ordained,” Shiro says. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re the captain of a ship, that means you have the power of </span>
  <em>
    <span>tradition,</span>
  </em>
  <span>” Lance counters. Shiro checks the rulebooks and, well, Lance is right. Shiro bullshits his way through a heartfelt sermon and signs a legal certificate. Lance’s pitch to the Earth Education Council passes with flying colors and a mostly-intact budget. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Shiro starts his new television series small, focusing on cultural institutions and tourist attractions throughout the Coalition planets, slowly broadening the reach with each season. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>By the time he’s in his mid-thirties, it’s an established gig. Shiro was an icon before he started working in public television, but now he’s an icon who has inspired:</span>
</p>
<ul>
<li><span>A line of carry-on luggage</span></li>
<li><span>Interplanetary guidebooks </span></li>
<li><span>And a drinking game. </span></li>
</ul><p>
  <span>Matt gives him the most shit about the drinking game, because “drink every time Shiro talks about the cultural resonance of a landmark and the camera lingers on his profile” is… a dangerously potent rule to abide by. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Shiro is personally amazed by the luggage. His mom owns one in every color. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>But success isn’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>exciting</span>
  </em>
  <span>. Shiro wonders if this is a personal failing: maybe he’s just one of those people who can’t be satisfied with a routine, no matter how enriching it is. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re probably processing trauma,” Matt says. He’s dating an android who accidentally downloaded a therapy chatbot’s neural net, and their techniques have been rubbing off. “You thought you were gonna die young, man, you’ve never really had to plan long-term. No wonder you get bored easily.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Shiro finds this offensive. Reading up on alien cultures is still relatively interesting, and he genuinely enjoys the bubblegum pop of exposure to each new planet he visits — it’s nice to see what things are like when he’s not decked out in full armor. But he can’t help but feel an itch between his shoulder blades, like he’s not doing enough. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re not bad for wanting to change jobs every five years, you know,” Matt says. “And no offense, but the show’s not as exciting as it used to be. The new network’s made the show kind of flat.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The word Matt is looking for is </span>
  <em>
    <span>neutered</span>
  </em>
  <span>; Shiro’s thought it himself from time to time. The first season, which was minimally finached and shot almost entirely by an MFE on furlough, still has the highest ratings of the whole series. Shiro watches the footage occasionally and stares into his recorded face, which has less stubble and fewer fine lines, and wonders what happened. That younger version of himself was so sure of the adventure, and now it’s hardly an adventure at all. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t hate it,” he says. “Maybe I’m just in a funk.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“As your manager,” Matt says — he always calls himself that; Shiro has never paid him — “I recommend taking a hiatus. But finish out the season first, the advertising contracts are killer.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Shiro frowns. “This is a Universal Access production, there’s no advertising.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Look at the time,” Matt tells him. “Gotta go.” </span>
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>Filming has a perennial positive: instead of spending nights in his office, approving other people’s overtime, now he spends his own overtime having drinks in dive bars at every end of the universe. It’s a business expense; he’s doing research. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s in one of these bars where he gets approached by the Blade of Marmora — or, rather, he’s approached by an undercover agent who reveals her true purpose once Shiro’s proved himself to be just as earnest and dorky as his onscreen persona suggests.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>(“That’s the joy of truth in advertising,” Matt says when Shiro gives one of his scripts a pained review. “You really are a nerd.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But did you have to script me tripping on the steps of a war memorial?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Listen,” Matt says, serious for once. “You think they’re going to let a veteran of the Arena come close to their memorials if they don’t think you’re washed up? This is why all of our business meetings take place in bars, Shiro. You’re undercover.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m not a spy, Matt.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“‘Course not,” Matt says, turning back to his copy of the script and making a note in the margin. Shiro sometimes forgets that Matt led a rebellion of his own and has just as much tactical awareness as a successful gladiator. “You’re a publicity stunt. So I’m gonna have our camera guy put the Arusian equivalent of a banana peel on the steps, and you’re gonna fall. Make it look convincing.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Shiro — knows Matt is right. And he really wants to see the memorial; he killed an Arusain in the arena, and he’d like to pay his respects. He follows the script, somersaulting beautifully into a fall worthy of old-Earth slapstick. The episode is what clinches the funding for the next season and scores him an invite to the outer reaches, where Coalition aide still hasn’t been approved.)</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Champion,” the Galra says when she sits across from him. She’s average height for the species, taller than Shiro though she’s probably not full-blooded. Despite being the one to approach him, she has the quiet aura of an agent who’s doing Shiro a courtesy by allowing him to see her face. “My name is Krolia, and I come on behalf of the Blade of Marmora. My people have a business opportunity for you.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Shiro pays attention, in part because he’s curious. The Galra don’t get around much now and he hasn’t seen one face-to-face since the last battle he fought on the ground, before the Coalition brokered a cease-fire. He knows there are refugee camps full of Galra who kept their heads down during the conflict, who tried to avoid the fight as much as possible. The sanctions apply to them just as much as they apply to the military leaders. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Even though he’s left that line of work, Shiro prefers to know his enemy. He also likes knowing that not every Galra is his enemy. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m just a tour guide,” he says. “So unless you want some sightseeing tips, I’m not sure how I can help you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That might be necessary,” she says. She keeps catching herself and rephrasing, like she’s unused to being honest, but not like she’s unused to talking to humans. Shiro is interested despite himself. “I think there’s one of ours who might be a good fit for your program.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“How so?” Shiro asks. He can’t think of any reason the Blade of Marmora would agree to appear on a travel show, let alone ask to be featured, unless they were hoping to redirect the Galaxy’s attention. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I have a soldier who’s retired from the business,” Krolia says. “He keeps to an enterprise the Blade has on New Daibazaal. With tourism, our people have a chance at making a profit.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So this is about economics,” Shiro says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No,” Krolia says. “It’s about people. I’m told you like people. Will you visit the sanctuary?” And she slides a brochure across the sticky table.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Without taking it, Shiro knows that this trip will change something. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>— It changes things right away, actually. It turns out that Shiro’s pilot has a clause in his contract about flying them into that zone, and he quits without giving notice. For the first time since the show got renewed, Shiro requisitions a traveller ship and files the flight plan himself. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sitting in the pilot’s seat feels — it feels good, really. Given the chance to fly, he’d rather do that than almost anything else.</span>
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>Getting to New Daibazaal takes some doing, even with Shiro’s habit of flying too fast. Since the war, everything requires a permit. The paperwork — PDFs haven’t progressed at all since Earth’s last digital age, and everything has to be cut-and-pasted into separate fields — is a nightmare. Shiro wrangles with his cultural diplomatic credentials and breathes a sigh of relief when the third iteration is accepted at Customs and stamped with some kind of biometric ink. He breathes a sigh of relief as he leaves Customs and makes his way into the larger transport terminal, where he’s supposed to meet his guide. There’s not a lot of bustle — New Daibazaal is hardly a hotspot — so Shiro takes a minute to unpack his filming equipment and grumble before he has to be professional.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What is it with reconstruction and permits,” Shiro mutters, flipping the switch on his comms unit to activate the little Roverbot he borrowed from Pidge. The ’bot is his entire camera crew: lightweight, unobtrusive, and eerily all-seeing. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Documentation or detention,” a voice answers, commiserating. “It’s like knowledge or death, except with more military tribunals and reparations.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Shiro expected his contact to be battle-hardened and exhausted, a little like he himself had felt before he found a project to throw himself into. He wasn’t expecting them to be </span>
  <em>
    <span>young</span>
  </em>
  <span>. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Vocal inflection is not always an accurate indicator of age, but Shiro has a feeling about this guy. He’s never met a Galra who looks so — delicate is the wrong word; even masked and attired in a jumpsuit cinched tight with a belt that has too many pouches hanging off it, the Blade is elegantly muscled. He has a watchful, restrained posture, like he’s Seen Things — and who hasn’t, after the war? — but is prepared to roll with the punches. Or maybe like he’s just waiting for something to happen, so he can burn off some energy.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’s also shorter than Shiro. That’s unusual. Galra usually show up in sizes ‘extra large’ and ‘are you </span>
  <em>
    <span>joking?</span>
  </em>
  <span>’</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“When you put it like that,” Shiro says, “I’m surprised there wasn’t more paperwork.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His contact’s posture relaxes minutely, and his tone scrapes down into a more casual register that makes Shiro think of relaxing under the stars after a long training session. It’s nice. “Well,” his contact says, “Krolia did vouch for you. That probably helped.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Krolia gave off strong head-bitch-in-charge vibes, even if Shiro likes to pretend he’s too evolved to use that term. “She seems like she’s good at moving operations along,” he says instead, and offers his hand. “Shiro.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I know who you are, we get your show out here like everyone else,” the Blade says, but he takes Shiro’s hand and shakes it in the Earth style Shiro rarely encounters this far out in the black. He has a good grip, even through his gloves. “You can call me Keith.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Keith,” Shiro says. It’s a human name. He wonders if it’s real, or if it’s a cover — one more mystery meant to guard the Blades’ legendary privacy. “Thanks for having me.” He lets go, but keeps his hand hanging free for the taking at his side as Keith leads him away from the docks — just in case. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Shiro hasn’t held hands with anyone in years, but. He’d like to hold Keith’s hand again. </span>
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>The ranch doesn’t look like much. The main living quarters are almost completely camouflaged by the cave they’re carved out of, and the rockface is surrounded by a half-circle of buildings constructed in various styles. The mismatched ambiance is intensified by the moss growing on every surface, horizontal and vertical. Everything is made from stone, no doubt quarried from the planet’s horizon: mountains encircle the range like broken teeth, and the stones are pockmarked with luridly-colored lichen. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Belatedly, Shiro orders the Roverbot to start recording footage. He really ought to have done so as soon as he met Keith. “So tell me about the place,” he says. Better late than never.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Keith huffs and slows his pace a fraction so Roverbot doesn’t include him in a panoramic sweep. “There’s not much to tell. The ranch is called Marmora Way, and this New Daibazaal.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Is it always this lush?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“As much as New Daibazaal </span>
  <em>
    <span>has</span>
  </em>
  <span> a lush side, sure; it’s mostly just moss and lichen out here, though. No soil.” Keith scuffs at the ground with his boot and kicks a few scales of lichen so he can scoop them up and show Shiro the rock beneath. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s amazing,” Shiro breathes. He lets himself forget his manners in order to catch Keith’s hand in the palm of his own, holding him steady so as to get a better look at the vegetation smeared onto Keith’s glove. “No root structure. Does it rain here? How does it survive?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Keith doesn’t pull away, though his answer has a questioning tone, like he’s shocked that Shiro </span>
  <em>
    <span>cares</span>
  </em>
  <span>; but that’s Shiro’s gift, really. He cares about every place he ends up, no matter how much the climate makes him feel like he’s been dunked in a warm bath and set in the sun to dry. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It rains,” Keith says. “And we have rivers, too. There’s one that way, over the rise.” And he twists his hand in Shiro’s, holding both their hands up to point in the right direction. The river that seeps down the hillside is a deep chartreuse that makes Shiro think uncomfortably of IV bags filled with medication. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The air is thick enough to make him envy Keith’s mask; it’s not a subtle contraption, but it must filter out the grit that exudes from every crevice, and it probably does something about the smell, musky and herbal, probably from the moss and the minerals seeping out of the stone. Shiro doesn’t hate it, but it's not unlike waiting outside of a memorial shrine. He almost expects someone to hand him a stick of incense and ring a bell.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Keith keeps hold of Shiro’s hand as he leads the way down to the entrance. They don’t encounter anyone on the way, even though Shiro feels like he’s being watched: from Krolia’s brochure, he knows that the ranch is staffed by an undisclosed number of former assassins and/or spies, all of them now turning their keen focus to the task of farming a type of local animal. Which is an easy enough thing to ask about, so he does.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“They’re sort of like big tardigrades,” Keith explains. “You </span>
  <em>
    <span>can</span>
  </em>
  <span> eat them, but now that the war is over, most people don’t want to.” One of the animals is snoozing in the lee of the entrance to the cave structure; it’s hard to make out at first, but then it's massive, curvaceous body and eight legs settle into Shiro’s sights, like one of those pictures where you don’t see a face until you suddenly do. Thinking of faces makes Shiro examine the animal’s head, which is scrunched-in like a manatee or a caterpillar. It looks a little like if a panda and an armadillo had a mostly-hairless baby. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s how you make money?” Now that Keith’s pointed it out, Shiro thinks that the creatures </span>
  <em>
    <span>do</span>
  </em>
  <span> resemble tardigrades in shape and behavior, if not in size. Once he knows what to look for, it’s clear that the one by the entrance isn’t alone. The creatures loll indiscriminately throughout the landscape, pawing at lichen and moss with their chubby legs, sucking nourishment from the plantlife with their probiscuses. One of the calves is almost bigger than Shiro himself. He kind of wants to touch it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Not by selling them,” Keith says. “We keep the population scarce enough that the market prices don’t just fall out from underneath us. You can ask Ulaz for the details; it’s his mission — his project, I mean.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Animal husbandry: a precipitous comedown for members of an elite battle sect, even if they are retired. It sounds worse than paperwork. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We don’t cull them,” Keith says, misunderstanding Shiro’s stunned expression. “They just kind of… shrivel up and go into stasis if they don’t have enough water. That’s why we have so many outbuildings; they’re for storage. We build our own compact shelving units. ”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re running a tardigrade cartel?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“A cartel might be more exciting,” Keith says grimly. “It’s more like a research station out here. We run a lot of data tables. Did you know that some kinds of moss cycle through male, female, and asexual reproduction?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Fascinating.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Not really,” Keith says. And Shiro supposes he has a point: if he were decommissioned to a planet like this, without benefit of some kind of hobby, Shiro thinks he’d be pretty unimpressed with how mosses managed to reproduce, too.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Limiting tardigrade availability so that they’re mildly appealing on the open market isn’t much of a business strategy, not when tardigrades aren’t in demand to begin with. No wonder Krolia wants help making it seem like a legitimate operation; Shiro’s travel show might encourage enough tourism to keep the business afloat while also offering camouflage for agents she wants to rotate out of the field. Shiro feels like he should disapprove of the measure — one of the concessions of the final treaty stated that the Galra would disband all military and covert operations — but it’s so useful. The postwar world runs on public relations.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Roverbot buzzes over his shoulder like a historic Earth insect, a bee, or maybe a mosquito, and takes in endless shots of the green moss and its rusty stems. Shiro enjoys the faint bioluminescence of the lichen that covers the rock faces, interspersed with manufactured fencing that keeps the animals in sight. They really do look like tardigrades. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“The name translates to something like ‘moss pigs,’” Keith says when Shiro asks what to call them. “Because they’re pigs about the moss. Half the time we move the herd it’s so they don't wipe out a subspecies. I bet you’re shocked, but they don’t really move fast.” He punctuates this statement with a sharp whistle and a cosmic wolf lopes up in response. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s Shiro’s time as a prisoner fighting for his life, not his military training, that keeps him from flinching until the big animal flops, husky-like, at Keith’s feet and rams its snout adoringly against Keith’s thigh. Shiro’s never seen a cosmic wolf up close before, and this one is a beautiful specimen, covered in tufts of electric blue fur that blend into the layers of stone and patches of lichen surrounding the place. It’s only when the wolf yawns that Shiro has a chance to see a mouthful of dagger-like teeth. It reminds him of the knives the Blade members of his acquaintance always carried: an antiquated weapon, but Shiro has done worse, usually with the equivalent of a rusty pipe. He can’t judge. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Glutton,” Keith says, fond. “Kosmo helps me keep the pigs in line. And he makes sure we never have to suffer through leftovers, too.” He fishes in one of the pouches on his belt and hands a treat to Shiro. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Let me guess,” Shiro says, placing it flat on his prosthetic hand and proffering it. He’s not an idiot. “Keep my palm flat.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No wonder Krolia picked you,” Keith says as Kosmo licks the morsel out of Shiro’s hand, teeth barely making an appearance. “You have a sense of humor.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I didn’t get the impression Krolia was the type to approve of humor,” Shiro says, rubbing Kosmo’s spit off on his thigh.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh, she doesn’t,” Keith says. He taps at the side of his mask and it dissolves; the effect blurs at Shiro’s vision and he blinks a few times before he digests the reality of Keith’s face, which is extremely pretty and very human. “But she thinks it’s important. Some kind of diversity initiative.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Is that her only diversity initiative?” Shiro asks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Keith smiles. There’s a hint of fang to it, and his eyes — the least human part of his face — glint momentarily. “Not if you count me,” he says. </span>
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Life on the ranch is both regimented and relaxed, Shiro realizes. Possibly to stave off crushing boredom.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The next morning he rolls out of his bunk and allows Kosmo to herd him into the main lodge for breakfast — nothing impressive; turns out that former assassins keep in shape by murdering their taste buds. He still takes notes before joining Keith on an all-terrain hovercraft for an aerial tour of the ranch acreage. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I hear you’re something of a pilot,” Keith says, revving the engines, inasmuch as engines running on recycled biofuel can be revved; they’re too eco-conscious to pack much of a wallop. “Hope this lives up to your standards.” Then he guns it and they’re off. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Shiro doesn’t hold back the whoop of joy he lets out as he anchors his feet and grips Keith’s shoulder with his flesh hand, because biofuel or no, Keith has tweaked the hovercraft to </span>
  <em>
    <span>move.</span>
  </em>
  <span> Roverbot hovers in their muddy wake, scanning excitedly and chirping a confused string of binary into Shiro’s comms unit. It’s the first episode Shiro’s filmed in years where he hasn’t rehearsed a takeoff maneuver until he’s bored to tears. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Keith’s a gifted pilot, and skilled. Part of it is that he knows the land, maneuvering so close to rock faces that Shiro can feel their damp chill through his heavy cardigan. There’s a clammy mist seeping up from the valley that smells metallic in the same way a stormfront rolling in smells metallic, or like when there’s an ion storm brewing in the next quadrant. Shiro feels giddy; he’s tense with anticipation. Keith keeps glancing back over his shoulder and increasing the speed every time he hears Shiro laugh over the comms in a kind of glorious feedback loop.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They fly around the property for hours, herding moss pigs from one food source to the next, occasionally stopping for Keith to dismount from the hovercraft and repair a torn fence wire or add some detail about moss to a data table. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Anything interesting?” Shiro asks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Keith — looks at Shiro kind of funny, like he’s not used to questions about what he does with his time. “Things are blooming,” he says, then plucks a couple of the reddish stems rising from one green clump, twisting until the little gemicups at the end form an ersatz flower crown. Amused, Shiro ducks down when Keith approaches and allows him to set the crown atop his head; it flops a little over one of Shiro’s ears.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Not the souvenir I had in mind,” Shiro says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You look like a king,” Keith tells him, and then — possibly from shyness, or just shock at his own impulse — raises his mask and motions back to their hovercraft. He lets Shiro drive for the next stretch. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Shiro promptly repays him by piloting off the edge of a ledge, pulling up scant inches before submerging the craft in the disturbingly shallow creek bed beneath the overhang. The eerie green water foams up where the exhaust churns it, and it feels like being spritzed with lemon juice and over-brewed tea, astringent and bitter.   </span>
</p><p>
  <span>When the water hits them both, Keith yelps with delight. His whole demeanor transforms with the release of sound, like he’s letting go of some tension he didn’t realize he was holding. He adjusts his grip around Shiro’s waist, fingers slipping under Shiro’s ridiculous but practical waist-pack. Having Keith’s fingers that much closer to Shiro’s body, even separated by fabric, feels like winning something; Shiro glances over his shoulder, turning so he can really hear the way Keith laughs and gasps as they fly. Shiro approves of that sound, of the way Keith has started relaxing against Shiro’s back, of the way Keith seems surprised at himself: it’s contagious. It makes him want to push the hovercraft past its limits, to take it up so high that the atmosphere causes a stall and Shiro has to figure out the overrides before they plummet to their doom. He hasn’t felt a thrill like this in a long time, one that wasn’t manufactured for a camera — never mind that he’s still being filmed. The Roverbot chirps fussily and takes a series of stills of the both of them, half-drenched in green water and laughing. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re insane,” Keith informs him when Shiro finally pulls over by the main gates and they dismount the hovercraft. “I’ve never seen anyone fly like that before.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I bet you’ve done that trick with the ledge hopping before, you can’t fool me,” Shiro says cheekily. “No way this little craft has regulation thrusters on it. I bet you could fly circles around me if you weren’t playing cool.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Cool — !” Keith sputters, but he trades his faux-indignation for even more laughter when a moss pig ambles over and extends its proboscis, trying to feed off a smear of algae spanning Shiro’s prosthetic from shoulder to elbow, proof he’d flown a little too close to the rock ledge. “Aw, it likes you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Get it </span>
  <em>
    <span>off</span>
  </em>
  <span>,” Shiro yelps. “I’m not a plant!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah, I know,” Keith says, but he hip-checks the tardigrade until it loses interest and shuffles off to find a less active food source. “Krolia’s thorough.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Shiro — decides to ignore that. The Blade aren’t known for being trusting. “Thanks for the rescue,” he says instead. “I owe you one.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“First one’s free,” Keith tells him. “After that, we can negotiate.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh, the</span>
  <em>
    <span> first </span>
  </em>
  <span>one! How many times are you planning to save me before this trip is over?!”</span>
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>The whole trip is like that: Keith keeps showing up and acting as Shiro’s guide, and every excursion, from filling out data tables with moss growth rates to helping one of the gravid moss pigs deliver a slippery, many-legged calf, feels natural and a little special, like maybe Keith wasn’t expecting Shiro, either. They’re objectively boring tasks: it takes all of Shiro’s skill at feigning enthusiasm to make the footage even remotely interesting, but the company is with the tedium. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>One night Shiro gets a notification from the planetary weather service that there’s going to be a meteor shower visible over one of the west pastures. He doesn’t bother asking Keith to join him, but he does cajole the sharp-faced cook in the main lodge into making a picnic basket. Then he heads back to the guest bunkhouse until it’s dark enough to put his rusty infiltration skills to use, sneaking into the main quarters and following the maze-like halls in search of Keith’s bedroom. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Kosmo finds him before Shiro finds where Keith sleeps — fair enough, it’s his territory — but Shiro’s happy to take the hit when the wolf shoves his head into the basket before teleporting him to Keith’s bare little room. Teleporting, Shiro decides, is not as fun as flying. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Keith acquiesces to Shiro’s abrupt demand that they go out in the middle of the night. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“On your orders, my king,” Keith says. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I like that,” Shiro decides, remembering the wet, glossy feeling of the moss-crown Keith had woven for him. “Keep thinking that — that I’m in charge. It’s a good look on you.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Keith shrugs one shoulder. He’s wearing an oversized tunic over what looks like a tee shirt but is probably repurposed tactical gear. None of the ranch inhabitants are exactly subtle about their former careers, though Keith has the least amount of menace in how he holds himself — he more than makes up for it by giving off a vibe of terrible, intense loneliness. Even more than he’s trying to film an episode that puts New Daibazaal in its best light, Shiro wants to devote all his energy to making Keith laugh like he did when they were flying. Rolling tardigrades away from a moss-patch, even with Kosmo leaping over them like hurdles, hadn’t come close.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Don’t you Terrans have a saying about the customer always being right?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don't know if this is a straightforward vendor-customer relationship,” Shiro muses. “Technically, I’m working too.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Give me a herd of misbehaving moss pigs and a refuelled hovercraft,” Keith mourns, “anything but this tourism mess. We’re not cut out for it.” He means: </span>
  <em>
    <span>I’m not cut out for it</span>
  </em>
  <span>. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So reassess,” Shiro says, mostly as a stopgap. He’s sure he knows this: New Daibazaal is a kind of trap, and Keith is like one of his beloved wolves. If he stays here much longer, collecting data and feeling his flight skills atrophy, he’s liable to do something reckless. Shiro recognizes himself in the feeling, how if keeping his experimental prosthetic arm had meant he had to stay with the Coalition, he would have disconnected it himself. It was like the Arena, with prettier artwork in the elevators, and Shiro had needed to get out.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tourism; politics. The two have a lot in common. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The picnic basket is well-stocked, but there’s no blanket. Keith strips out of his tunic and settles down on it and Shiro makes do with his sweater; it’s not exactly cold out, but the ledge they’re watching the sky from is exposed and there’s a breeze coming down from the mountains. Part of him would like to put his arm around Keith and cuddle close while they watch the stars spatter across the dark sky, but the moment doesn’t feel quite right for it. Shiro’s happy to make a move, but he doesn’t want to be misinterpreted. He’d rather they were both aware of it, and laughing. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Where’s your Roverbot?” Keith asks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Left it back at the ranch,” Shiro says. “It’s distracting. I have better things to think about than work.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Keith shifts on his makeshift blanket, the same way the cat Shiro grew up with used to settle anxiously against a new pillow, testing to see how comfortable it's possible to get. “I thought that was the whole point of coming out here,” he says. “It’s the only reason I can think of someone wanting to be here. Working.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I find I’m enjoying the people of Marmora Way quite a bit,” Shiro says, and then, feeling reckless, “well. One person.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Keith’s eyes don’t glow in the dark, but they do reflect the available light. It makes it easy to see which way he’s looking. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I like meeting new people,” Shiro says. “Always have. But there’s something about this place — there’s something about you. It’s different.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’ve heard that before,” Keith says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I know,” Shiro says, and gives in. He takes Keith’s hand in his own — surely that's not too much of an imposition. “I’ve been trapped before. As far as prisons go, this is one of the nicer ones — but it’s better when you can go along under your own steam.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Keith not only allows the hand-holding, he sidles close, almost close enough that Shiro </span>
  <em>
    <span>could </span>
  </em>
  <span>wrap his arm around him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“There’s an idea,” Keith says. “Going somewhere. I like the sound of it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Lucky you,” Shiro says. “I’m something of an expert.”</span>
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>Normally Shiro works with a crew when he’s picking the footage for an episode. The general formula begins with a brief introduction, a panoramic shot of him staring at a horizon or a cultural institution, and is followed by a montage of local food and entertainment. He’s perfectly capable of working without an entourage, which is why he wasn’t worried when the network suggested he run this episode solo. Shiro doesn’t care about liability waivers, and neither does the ’bot Pidge lent him. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>But as he reviews the Roverbot footage of the New Daibazaal, Shiro is forced to admit that what he’s making isn’t anything like the usual episode of </span>
  <em>
    <span>T. Shirogane Travels in Space! — </span>
  </em>
  <span>for starters, the Roverbot is powered by an AI that’s tuned to Shiro’s behavior. Half the recordings so far are fixed lovingly on Keith’s face. This calls for a new approach.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m adapting,” Shiro explains when Keith asks why he’s been conscripted as a co-host. “I think it’ll make things more dynamic.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hard to argue with that,” Keith says. He’s scribbling herd identifiers on moss piglets with the local equivalent of a Sharpie, a task made less boring only because Kosmo will play fetch with a moss piglet if it’s thrown across the field. Keith has a pretty sweet spiral pass. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Shiro flops down beside Keith and smiles widely at Roverbot. “Our representative has a keen understanding of daily life at this outpost. His careful husbandry ensures the newest piglets are  welcomed into the herd.” He might be laying it on a bit thick.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“The marks are to identify when the piglets were born,” Keith says. He stares directly into Roverbot’s recording lens as he talks, like he’s keeping an enemy in his sights. “I told you that already.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah, Keith,” Shiro sighs. “Tell that to them.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Keith humors Shiro and narrates the intricacies of keeping the moss pigs from getting too enthusiastic about moss consumption. And he </span>
  <em>
    <span>keeps</span>
  </em>
  <span> humoring Shiro: once they get back to the main dwelling, Keith shows Shiro (and Roverbot, and their eventual viewers) how the Blades have trained different species of moss to grow inside their living quarters, like bespoke tapestries. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>After a brief huddle with the others living at Marmora Way, Shiro’s even allowed to film the Galra sitting in a companionable half-circle while they complete repair work and other small domestic chores: an episode of one of Shiro’s earlier shows plays in the background, muted subtitled in three different dialects. Shiro’s not sure if he should be flattered when it becomes clear that the Blades are devoted players of the drinking game for the show, punctuating their work with shots of the moss equivalent of wheatgrass juice… but at least the media rights won’t be hard to get. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re a lifesaver,” Shiro tells Keith, each time Keith agrees to step in front of Roverbot and participate in the filming. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“How many of these shots are you going to take?” Keith asks, looking pained. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>(How many shots? A lot. Shiro is taking advantage of how much film he needs to record — each time Keith speaks on camera, telling a story that’s objectively interesting only because it’s Keith speaking, Shiro feels like he’s encountered a new, unexplored country.)</span>
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>The day before shooting wraps on New Daibazaal, Keith takes Shiro to a festival. It’s unusual to invite outsiders, he cautions; normally only the Blades are invited. Shiro’s given a suit of armor like Keith’s own and figures out how to enable the cowl and mask so he’s just another faceless warrior, albeit one who’s a little shorter than usual. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Shiro deactivates Roverbot before entering the festival grounds.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s all right,” Keith says softly. “I know you have a mission.” He’s gotten quieter, the more time they’ve spent in each other's company. It’s a good kind of quiet, even if it sometimes seems painful: Keith looks less frustrated than he did when he first met Shiro, like he’s learning how to show his own hidden softness. Like talking to Shiro, spending time with him, has done more to let Keith come back from the war than being a rancher ever could.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Tonight’s not about the show,” Shiro says, firmly, the same way he has every night since the meteor shower. After sunset, his time belongs to Keith. His own voice sounds a little distorted under the mask, but it’s reassurance enough that Keith smiles brilliantly before he raises his own mask. He lets Shiro lead him through the gate to the fairgrounds, even though Keith is the one who knows the way to go.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The fair is stunning. It's almost a shame that Shiro isn’t recording it, because the sight of so many Blades enjoying themselves is exactly what Shiro needed to see: it’s humanizing. For lack of a better word. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>One muscular, full-furred Galra is dancing with a curvy hybrid who has only one eye; another retired Blade with twin prosthetic legs leaps up a staggered stone wall as part of a relay race. It’s not a colorful gathering, and it has the casual, lazy feel of a tailgate on Old Earth. There’s no unifying music, just lots of food and crosstalk and the occasional moss pig dragging a garland of gemicup spores and actual flowers along with it. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The flowers might be part of the point of the festival; Keith hasn’t said. After the third time someone approaches them and drapes a garland about Keith’s neck, though, Shiro herds them to a secluded corner. The garlands all have those same mosses Keith wove into that silly crown he gave Shiro, before he called Shiro a king. Seeing Keith draped in them makes Shiro feel like — he’s about to do something important.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Do these mean something?” he manages to ask, touching the gemicups. He can’t feel the texture of the nest-like spores through the gloves of his suit, but he remembers the way the color leached out of them. It took forever to scrub it from his hair. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Most of the Blade retirees are part Galra and part something else. It’s why they don’t have a real place on New Daibazaal; Keith’s the only one on the property who seems discomforted by how his appearance advertises a connection between the Galra and Earth that predates Earth’s entrance into the war. Instead of answering Shiro’s question about the garland, Keith drops his mask, like his human features tell the whole story. Maybe they do: maybe no matter how many overtures the other Blades have made, Keith never felt like he fit anywhere until he met Shiro and got to know a human up close.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh,” Shiro says, in reflex. “You’re beautiful.” The last time he really got to look at Keith’s face they’d been stargazing, and he hadn’t wanted to seem like he was staring.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Don’t,” Keith tells him. He looks a little purple at the edges (he must be blushing), his eyes a sliver too big for his face. Shiro wishes he could take notes or pictures, wishes, for a terrible and invasive moment, that he hadn’t turned off the Roverbot.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Don’t what?” Shiro laughs. “Don’t tell the truth? Don’t look? You’ve got to give me something to work with here.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Keith, despite his protest, hasn’t pulled away — has, instead, twined his fingers with Shiro’s and drawn even closer. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m half-human,” Keith says. It’s an offering. Shiro realizes that Keith is — Keith is asking if Shiro thinks of him as a person. If Keith’s human enough for Shiro to love him. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’d be beautiful even if you weren’t,” Shiro confides. “You should trust me; I’ve seen things.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re a conqueror,” Keith says, but he’s smiling. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Shiro leans down and kisses him. “I’m a king,” he whispers. “You said so yourself.”</span>
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>They leave the festival early. Shiro can’t bring himself to care: Keith has his mask down and he’s brilliant, like he’s on the verge of some profound realization. All Shiro wants is to witness it — seeing Keith like this, meeting Keith: this is the kind of discovery that Shiro has always yearned for. It feels exactly like leaping off a cliff and knowing when to pull up.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Shiro bundles the both of them into the shadow of the main building, shoving one of the moss pigs out of the way so they can rest against the plush moss carpeting the stone. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Nice party,” Shiro says, teasing. He touches Keith’s face, his shoulder, his back and flank: Keith leans into Shiro’s hands, eager and soft.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I shouldn’t have taken you away,” Keith says. “It was selfish of me — ”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You should be more selfish,” Shiro encourages. “I don’t care.”</span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“You </span>
  <em>
    <span>should,</span>
  </em>
  <span>” Keith protests. He bats away Roverbot, which reactivated as soon as they left the festival enclosure. Just as suddenly as it appeared, his delight slips away. “I forgot myself. This is for an audience.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Shiro grabs for Roverbot and mashes its external buttons until he’s either broken it or shut the thing down. Who cares if he’s destroyed two weeks of footage; this is more important. The way Keith looks now, vulnerable and lovely, is for Shiro’s eyes only. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re not some human-interest story to ensure your community’s survival,” Shrio says. He pulls off the upper half of the Blade suit Keith lent him and drapes it over the ’bot’s chassis. It’s not exactly cold out; he feels hot and sweaty, and his bare skin prickles in the night air.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Don’t ruin your recording,” Keith moans.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Will you forget about that,” Shiro says. “Come with me, if you’re so worried — you’re miserable here. Come with me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You think I should leave?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I think you should do something that makes you happy,” Shiro says. “Herding tardigrades and recording moss reproduction cycles hasn’t worked. The war is over, Keith; come with me and see what else is out there.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Keith laughs in Shiro’s face. “Is that what you’re doing?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But Shiro’s not laughing. “I’m tired of performing,” he says, feeling braver than he’s ever been, “If you came with me, I’d go wherever you wanted to go.”</span>
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>Shiro isn’t late to the disembarkation lounge the next morning, but — it’s a near thing. Krolia meets him at the door, just as imposing and opaque as she seemed when she first approached him about coming to New Daibazaal. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Champion,” she says. “And how did you find your visit?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I liked it very well, Blade Krolia,” Shiro tells her. “It’s a shame to leave this beautiful place.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Please.” She gestures at him, dismissive. “I’m sure you say that to all the planetary systems you visit.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Something like it,” Shiro agrees. The phrasing varies a little; he has a spreadsheet of adjectives that are appropriate to use, depending on the culture. He’s pretty sure it’s a subset of the drinking game people play when they watch reruns. “This is the part where you’re supposed to offer me a token to take with me on my travels.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“A token you won’t accept.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I can’t,” he says, apology creeping into his posture, because there’s a not-insignificant part of him — the part that hasn’t been smothered by military minimalism — that would </span>
  <em>
    <span>love</span>
  </em>
  <span> to have a souvenir collection. Though there isn’t any room on his ship for even a baby moss pig unless they dehydrate it and shove it under a workstation. “But if you insist… ”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Shiro’s not a diplomat, for all the show has worked to broaden trade relations with countless societies. He doesn’t negotiate when there’s something on the table that he wants. Krolia outranks him and is clearly used to getting her way when it matters. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>But Shiro has a trump card. It had taken extensive coaching from Keith, coaching that had lasted all night and into the morning: time Shiro would rather have used kissing Keith, and seeing how far down his blush really went. Keith had been adamant, though; so Shiro knows he has to wait until Krolia demands he take something with him.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I can insist on a great many things,” Krolia agrees. “I’m well-versed in insisting. In fact, I’ll do so now: I insist you take an escort as you leave New Daibazaal.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Huh. Shiro wasn’t expecting that. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>Mom</span>
  </em>
  <span>,” Keith hisses. He’d crept into the room in Shiro’s wake, so quiet Shiro hadn’t registered his presence despite knowing he was coming. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh, forgive me,” Krolia says. She isn’t laughing, but she’s making fun. He can see a little of her face in Keith’s, the way Keith carries himself; the little whiskers. Krolia isn’t cute, not the way Keith is, but Shiro finds himself appreciating the layers to her humor now. “Was I supposed to wait for some signal? File the appropriate paperwork? Ignore your late-night transfer request? This is a very momentous occasion. If you wanted protocol, I’d have to insist on an entourage, or for you to wear something besides that armor. Your cowl is crooked, anyway.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Keith slinks to Shiro’s side, letting his mask dissolve. Despite his tone, he doesn’t look displeased. “You’ve been telling me to leave the ranch for years,” he says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I can’t take Keith from you,” Shiro says weakly. “He’s a person. No one can take him anywhere he doesn’t want to go.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Believe me,” Krolia says, “I know.” She hands over an identity card and wad of GAC. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Shiro squints at the name on the card. “You gave him my last name,” he realizes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m told that’s common, with husbands,” Krolia says. “That you take their name when you marry them.”</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“What,</span>
  </em>
  <span>” Keith hisses. Shiro grins at Keith’s mortification, and then grins even harder. A husband. It’s not quite the souvenir he would have chosen, but he finds it's exactly what he wanted.</span>
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>Bringing Keith aboard the little ship does present a few problems — namely, Shiro only requisitioned enough supplies for one pilot. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s fine,” Keith says, mostly recovered or at least pretending to be from his mother’s treachery. “I brought rations.” He secures his few possessions before stripping down to his lavender skin and crawling into the sleeping bag strapped to the wall, old Earth exploration style: the gravity simulator runs on a low-power cycle overnight, and the bags keep their occupants floating safely in place while they sleep. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh, well, if you brought rations,” Shiro says. He removes his own clothes and sets them in the refresher to decontaminate; after a moment, he retrieves Keith’s clothes from their tidy compartment and adds them to the cycle. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What’s Earth like?” Keith asks, as Shiro bounces over in the low gravity. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Complicated,” Shiro answers, joining Keith inside the bag. It’s warm like this, pressed skin-to-skin, and Shiro shivers in delight as he figures out how to best arrange his bigger body around Keith’s; “there’s always paperwork.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Are you telling me that I’m leaving one bureaucracy for another,” Keith gripes. He has a tail — a small one, short and twisted like a manx cat — and Shiro decides to go for broke and use it as a handhold. It works tremendously well for pulling Keith even closer. His skin is velvet-soft.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well — we could just keep flying.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Don’t squeeze so hard, it’s sensitive,” Keith says, and Shiro relaxes his grip on Keith’s tail and relishes the way it flexes in his palm. “That’s better.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They don’t talk about it that night — about being husbands on paper, anyway. They talk about other things, like how much Keith aches to see the outer rim, almost as much as he wants to see the planet where he was born. In turn, Shiro tells him about fighting in the gladiator pits. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Are you trying to scare me off?” Keith asks, like Shiro’s perhaps a little dim. “One of the Blades at Marmora Way was the one who saved you. I knew all the stories anyway.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And you still agreed to meet me?” Shiro can’t believe it. The darkest year of his life, and Keith treats it as just another story. He’s the first person who hasn’t assumed that Shiro is either one thing or another in the wake of it. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Is this a human thing?” Keith wriggles pleasantly in his arms. “The thing where you have all sorts of expectations and then get shocked when other cultures don’t meet them?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t think humans have cornered the market on that one,” Shiro points out. “You’re running away with me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Must be my heritage,” Keith says. “Where are we really going?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That depends on you,” Shiro says. “We can go wherever you want to go. I don’t have to renew the show’s contract, but it could open a lot of doors. Flight routes. I bet Matt could get you written into the staffing agreement.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What would I do?” Keith wonders.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’d let you be the pilot,” Shiro promises. Shiro loves flying more than anything. It’s what he’s always wanted, and it’s not hard to give that role to Keith. He thinks that if Keith wanted Shiro to step away from the controls forever, it would be a joy to watch him in action for as long as they both live.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Shiro,” Keith breathes, impressed and enamoured. The conversation peters out pretty quickly after that. Shiro never imagined having a standard-issue sleeping bag in a cramped ship serve as his marriage bed, but: he’s willing to adapt. Keith doesn’t seem to mind, either.</span>
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>Out of guilt, Shiro runs the film Roverbot shot on the ship’s computers and tries to splice it into a halfway-interesting piece of television. Marmora Way doesn’t really have enough action going on to anchor an entire episode. The result is a lot of longing glances between the two of them — Roverbot really liked panning in on their faces — interspersed with moss pigs falling gently over onto their sides. They make a satisfying <em>flop</em> sound and bounce a little, so there's almost as much footage of that as there is of Keith. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Thanks for the loan,” Shiro messages Pidge, and copies her on the file submission. To his mild dismay, by the time he and Keith have re-entered Earth’s solar system, the episode has aired. It’s wildly popular.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Keith is even worse at performing for the camera than Shiro is, possibly because he wasn’t performing at all when Roverbot managed to record him. The blogs have erupted with new editions of the drinking game centered around Keith’s microexpressions and the way he and Shiro interact on-camera. Shiro is hesitant to reconnect to the central messaging dropbox; he has a sense that Keith’s going to have a fair amount of fan mail — and possibly a detailed message from Krolia. The episode has done wonders for the Galra’s reception across the Galaxy.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Matt says that searches for documentaries about Galra traditions are up fifteen percent in his quadrant,” Shiro reports. “I feel like I’m at a disadvantage. What am I missing?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Keith makes a face. He’s growing out his whiskers and the effect is a little too adorable to take seriously. “It’s kind of silly.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Shiro rests his chin in his palms and gazes expectantly at Keith, waiting for elaboration.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I mean, I’m only half,” Keith says. “But the documentary most people are watching is probably the one about social grooming? We used to do that at the ranch sometimes, it was nice.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Shiro is struck with a mental image of a large circle of Blade operatives braiding each others’ fur. His heart grows approximately three sizes at the thought; Keith responds beautifully to Shiro’s more tactile overtures. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Like a big cuddle party?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Keith shrugs. “Sort of. We used to groom each other after finishing chores for the day, maybe watch a show at the same time. Ulaz used make a big deal about it, said it was important for cementing community relationships — ”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Keith,” Shiro interrupts, “are you saying I haven’t been meeting your needs?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Predictably, the conversation gets tabled in favor of downloading the documentary. It has more in common with the romcoms Shiro’s mom likes to watch than it does with anything he’s seen on an educational broadcast: it shows the development of social grooming from birth to pair-bonding, with lots of soothing background music and closeups of Galra leaning happily against each other, eyes closed in what appears to be bliss. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Shiro learns how to braid hair after watching that, and finds out that Keith can purr.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re right, this is nice,” he tells Keith as he unravels a laughable attempt at a fishtail braid. He keeps screwing it up, but it’s pleasant to have a task while they cuddle, even if he is mediocre at it. “Can’t believe you were holding out on me.”</span>
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>When Shiro finally brings Keith to Earth, they’re mobbed outside the conference room. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Stay close,” Shiro whispers. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Do you think they’ll try to put me in a cage?” Keith asks. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“They’ve gotten better about that.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m not worried, I just like to be prepared.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Part of the reason for the crowd is that they’re not signing on to produce more episodes of <em>T</em>. <em>Shirogane Travels in Space!</em> Now that he has his own ship and a real partner, Shiro wants a different kind of adventure. Fortunately, between his old contacts and Keith’s Marmoran network, they have their pick of flight plans for the border systems. The benefit of Keith's contacts being, of course, that they'll have less paperwork to file at Customs.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We can fake our deaths more easily on the outer rim,” Keith says once they make it back to their ship. It doesn’t feel tiny now: just cozy. The recycled air is dry and crisp, entirely unlike the humid atmosphere on New Daibazaal. Keith’s baby-fine fur generates a tremendous amount of static if Shiro doesn’t groom him regularly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Or we could just say that reception is terrible and we’ll send a transmission when we can.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“This must be what you humans mean by ‘ghosting,’” Keith tells him with the surety of someone who’s grown up in a war zone with exactly three Earth novels for entertainment. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah,” Shiro agrees, and kisses him: a benefit of getting rid of the cameras, since the slightest hint of a Roverbot still makes Keith flinch. “Let’s fly.”</span>
</p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Do you think you know who wrote this? <a href="https://t.co/RLZT93pB7K?amp=1">There's a guessing game!</a></p></blockquote></div></div>
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